WASHINGTON (CNS)—Although a new report on the causes and context of
child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy says it is primarily a historical
problem, the church must guard against complacency, two key figures in
the release of the report said at a Washington news conference.

"There is no room for fatigue or feeling that people have heard enough
when it comes to efforts to protect children," said Bishop Blase J.
Cupich of Spokane, Wash., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on the
Protection of Children and Young People.

Diane Knight, a retired Milwaukee social worker who chairs the all-lay
National Review Board, said the report's findings that the church's
actions since 2002 have been "effective in preventing further acts of
abuse" should in no way "lull us as a church into complacency."

"There will always be adults who are attracted to children in society
and in the church," Knight said. "Thus, we must always be on guard and
do all that is possible to prevent sexual abuse."

They were joined at an afternoon news conference in the headquarters of
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops by Karen Terry, principal
investigator for the John Jay study.

"The problem of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in the United
States is largely historical, and the bulk of cases occurred decades
ago," Terry said.

But, she added, "the vulnerability to abuse remains a risk in any
organization where adults form mentoring and nurturing relationships
with minors."

In response to a question, Terry stressed that the report was prepared
independently by the John Jay researchers, without any influence on the
findings from the bishops or the National Review Board.

"We did the work, we did the writing, we came to the conclusions," she said.
Bishop Cupich said the sexual abuse of children "is a human problem," not just a church problem.

"Our church is committed to being part of the solution," he said. "The
very fear that abuse would ever recur in the church compels us to take
whatever action is needed to see that it does not arise again."

He also pledged the bishops to "build partnerships with leaders in the
civic community to rally the entire adult world to put an end to this
societal scourge."

Bishop Cupich praised the John Jay researchers and the funders of the
study "for helping us better understand what happened in this sickening
period of our history."

Knight, who has served on the National Review Board since 2007 and
chaired it since 2009, said nothing in the John Jay report "should be
interpreted as making excuses for the terrible acts of abuse that
occurred. There are no excuses.

"There is much that the church has to learn from this report, and much
of it is difficult," she added. "The bottom line is that the church was
wrong not to put children first for all of those years, all of those
decades."

Knight said the sexual abuse crisis had caused a "shattering of trust in God's very representatives."

"We would be a sorry church if such news of sexual abuse were treated as
commonplace," she said. "Protection of children must be part and parcel
of every parish, school and faith community in America, indeed, in the
entire world."

The U.S. bishops are to review their 2002 charter during their June
meeting in Seattle, but Bishop Cupich said its policy of "zero
tolerance" for any priest credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor
"must remain in effect."

That policy not only protects children, he said, but also protects "the
tens of thousands of priests who have suffered greatly in this crisis,
all the while quietly serving with honor and self-sacrifice every day of
their lives."

Asked why bishops sometimes returned abusive priests to ministry with
children after treatment, Bishop Cupich said those decisions were based
on "the science of the day," which indicated that a person could be
"cured" of abusive behavior.

"That was a bad mistake, shared by people across the board," he said. "We know better now."

Terry, dean of research and strategic partnerships at John Jay, defended
the report's findings that few of the priests who abused minors during
the peak of the abuse crisis in the 1960s and 1970s were pedophiles.

"Very few priests exhibited behavior consistent with the persistent
abuse of prepubescent children," she said. Instead, she said, the
majority were "generalists" who abused multiple minors of different ages
based on the opportunities available to them.

For the purpose of comparing the behavior of sex offenders, the John Jay
report defined a priest-abuser of children age 11 or younger as a
pedophile, and a priest-abuser whose victims were all boys over age 12
as an "ephebophile."

In addition, Terry said, most of the victims of abusive priests were
young males, not because most priest-abusers were homosexuals, but
because their work gave them more access to males and more opportunities
to abuse them.